


Baby Birds

by Sicklywrites



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: AU, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, NSFW, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-31 19:46:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6485194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sicklywrites/pseuds/Sicklywrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rona, or 'Ronnie', escapes from Vault 101, her childhood bully is not far behind. Together they're thrown out into the Capital Wasteland, nothing in the world but each other.</p><p>AU where the Lone Wanderer and Butch escape together, plus some other angsty stuff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out of the Nest

**Author's Note:**

> I've posted and deleted this work a few times because I haven't been happy with it, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay with it now and will keep it up. Sorry about that! I hope you enjoy.

Sirens, screaming and gunshots. That’s how it started, didn’t it? Amata yelling desperately, grabbing Ronnie’s arm and shaking her awake. _Your dad’s gone and Jonas is dead!_ Ronnie very briefly thought it was an elaborate joke. Then the gun in her hand so foreign, the BB gun strapped to her back just in case, a photo of her and her father stuffed into the pocket of her vault suit because she just _knew._

Butch runs up to her half way through, and she almost doesn’t stop. The asshole doesn’t deserve her time and never has, but the look on his face is more desperate than she’d ever seen on anyone in her life. He begs, _pleads,_ to save his mother from the radroaches. He apologizes and admits, he hates those damn bugs. After telling him to shove it up his ass, she finally agrees, but it’s too late by the time they get to her. The radroaches are already nibbling through her frail old skin. He shouts and Ronnie runs, the guards closing in.

Stealing the Overseer’s passcode, opening the tunnel, – stomping radroaches as she went, watching the rest scatter across the metal floor – and then standing at that damn vault door.

“Stop!” a voice from behind her yells, and she turns knowing exactly who it is. “I’m coming with you!”

Ronnie doesn’t know how to respond, because in every alternate universe in which she would ever have done this, Butch would have appeared in none of them. He’s Butch, the tough one, the one that secretly has a fear of radroaches and would never _really_ leave the vault – but he’s there and he’s running for her, running for the great big door into the outside world.

“I’m getting out of this fucking vault, I-I-I—”

It’s the last thing he says before the guards burst through the door with their rifles, and the door hisses and cranks open, alarms ringing loudly. Ronnie doesn’t give a shit about Butch, but he’s in her way when she runs for the escape. She pushes him by the back, her hand against the stupid snake emblazoned onto his jacket that she always despised. They fall outside that vault for the first time in their lives, the guards shouting behind them, and they run.

They just ran.

That’s what her thoughts are like now. Like dreams – nightmares – formed from a sheltered life. Horrible memories of being thrown out of a nest like a baby bird with no wings, simply because it never thought it needed them.

Ronnie lays on her side staring at the collapsing ceiling. It’s cracked and stained, rebar sticking out like a broken bone. An hour ago she saw the sunset and remembered just what her father had said, telling her all about the wonders of the world. She remembered looking at a painting with Amata, and talking about all the beauty the world outside might hold. Ronnie’s eyes stung. This world held _nothing_.

Butch rolled over on the floor a metre or two from her, grunting in his sleep. She’d spent all her life hating him and now he was the last thread leading back to the vault. He might of even been the last thread of anything. Even her father seemed disconnected, after she learned of his life on the outside.

There wasn’t a word for it, really, how Butch was ‘untouched’ like she was. How they’d run out of that cage together and never looked back. How they’d stopped, heaving and trying to catch their breath, and just stared out into the barren nothing they had stepped out into.

Welcome to The Capital Wasteland.

“Get up, Nosebleed.”

A pair of socks hit her in the face, and Butch lets out a long, disgusted groan. When she opens her eyes and throws the socks off her head, Butch is sitting up, mostly turned away from her, doing up the buckle on his belt. The snake on his back still curls around with that smug look on its face.

“You sleepin’ with no pants on under that?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at her with a half-cringe on his face. ‘That’ is an old blanket they found lying around, made mostly of dust. She looks at him as if to say _of course I’m not._ Butch sticks his tongue out briefly, making a noise of disgust, and looks away, flattening the creases in his jacket with an open hand. “Gross.”

“You expect me to sweat my ass off?”

“I don’t wanna think about your gross ass!” he exclaims, straightening his sleeves. In many ways, their relationship hasn’t changed a bit since they were ten. If she had a sweetroll, he’d steal it.

She knows that – once upon a time – he apologized to her about everything he’d ever said, and she knows that in the time since then he’d well and truly made up for the apology like it had never happened, but she also knows that not for a moment did she ever consider leaving him behind. They were stuck together by unspoken rules, and that’s just how they’d come to accept it. In the two months they had been out here, all the shit they’d been through and somehow survived, they’d never met anyone like them. Ronnie didn’t see anyone to be like Butch, and neither did he for her. They had no choice in being connected, as if between them there rang a long blue and yellow string that they couldn’t cut or get away from. They were just _together._

She remembered when the days started with Butch saying “Another day of looking for your dad?” begrudgingly. She remembered feeling awful, and the misery kicking in. _I’m sorry,_ she would always think, _we should have gotten to your mom faster._

Then, a few weeks later, James was dead.

Ronnie rolled over onto her back and gently touched the black eye that was beginning to appear.

“Why did you wake me up?” she asked. She heard the floor creak, Butch trying to get comfortable and stay warm.

It always stuck in her mind how her father had died. She screamed and cried, fixing the _fucking_ water for him. Somewhere in there though was a blurred image of her running to Butch, perhaps because she had nowhere else to go. She rubbed her good eye and looked to him, partially wanting to forget that memory, and wondering if he’d forgotten it, too. She looked up at him and for a moment considered him her only friend.

“It’s fucking cold,” he complained, “and you’re talking about sweatin’.”

“It wouldn’t be so cold if you didn’t lose the bedrolls.”

“Ay! I didn’t lose ‘em, they were stolen.”

“You left them behind for ‘safety’ and they were stolen, you might as well have given them away for free,” she growled. He scowled at her and rubbed his hands together. She had to admit, it _was_ cold. The heat of the wasteland cooled right off when the sun went down, and not even the ruins of the house they were in did much against the freezing cold breeze. But that was _his_ fault for losing those bedrolls.

After a few minutes of silence in which Ronnie thought they might go back to sleep, he groaned again, rolling around restlessly, his teeth beginning to chatter. When she opened her eyes he was on his belly with his arms tucked underneath him, chin tight to his shoulder. She briefly felt bad for him. It was just enough time to consider something. She felt around the edge of the blanket. It was only big enough to cover a single bed.

“I’m going to suggest something and you shut your damn mouth,” she said. One of his eyes opened to her.

“What?” he grunted.

“We can share this blanket, and use each other’s body heat, otherwise one of us is going to end up freezing to death.”

His nose wrinkled in disgust.

“No!” he said, as if he hadn’t given the idea a second thought, or any thought at all.

“You’re such a child!”

He looked up at her as if he might poke his tongue out at her.

“I ain’t sharing no _heat_ with you.”

She rolled back over.

“Fine.”

She laid there with her eyes squeezed tensely shut. There was at _least_ one or two times a day that she considered leaving, but she didn’t, and she hated how even the idea of it struck her with guilt. She could so easily remember, in the many years of her life that she spent in that vault, how she would have given anything to get away from him. Though, she supposed, now was no different. She’d get away from him now if she could.

Next to her, he continued to shiver.

Butch rubbed his numbing fingers against his palms, imagining his lips going blue, when he felt something on his back. He struggled to get away before arms wrapped over his side and grabbed his forearm.

“Shut up,” Ronnie said, and threw the blanket over the both of them. His body tightened in protest, but he couldn’t hold it forever.

“Get off me, Nosebleed!” he argued, trying to push her off with his shoulder.

“You’re going to freeze, you stubborn asshole,” she scolded, and rolled onto her other side to face away from him. Back to back, the old blanket over them, Butch finally accepted it, tucking his face up in the warmth. Neither of them would say anything about this in the morning.

When Butch woke he’d rolled over in his sleep, facing Ronnie. Not for some second did he forget who she was, and that was testament to just how used to her he was. He was calm and groggy, eyes half open. Ronnie was fast asleep, and he could tell, because if she wasn’t her hands would have been moving, at least a little. She’d move her fingers or rub her feet together, but now she was still. She had her head on her bent arm, her hair over her face at the front and tucked in under her neck at the back. He guessed it was so it didn’t touch him.

She breathed slowly and calmly, and for a brief moment before he rolled over again – he didn’t want her to know he was facing her – he hoped she was dreaming about being in the vault with her dad.


	2. A Haircut

“Sometimes I don’t know why we let this town live,” Ronnie said, passing Cromwell, the ‘crazy-ass preacher’, as Butch would say.

“It’s a shit hole but at least the folks are nice,” Butch agreed.

“The moron in the tower offered me a place there. Could you imagine the luxury?” Ronnie sighed. “I’d do anything for it.”

“’Cept blow up Megaton,” Butch said with a tiny flicker of a smirk.

“There are people and _things_ I hate in this place, but there are people I like, too. And I… wouldn’t… _kill_ people like that,” she said, rubbing her forehead wearily. “Would you have done it?”

Butch thought for a moment, walking beside her with his knees aching dully.

“Nah. I’m not that much of an asshole.”

* * *

The house in Megaton was a _pit_ , but at least it was somewhere to stay. Wadsworth was disabled, ‘sleeping’ in the corner because Butch found the thing incredibly creepy and unnerving.

The building was damp and dark, dust pooling in every nook and cranny it could stuff itself into. Two bedrooms, the bigger one for Ronnie, the slightly smaller one for Butch, and a big, fairly empty space they shared.

“My hair is getting long,” Ronnie said, running her fingers through it as she stared into the mirror. Her fairly bright blonde had turned into a dirty, knotted mess. It was still short, even if it was long by her standards, and always tucked behind her ears.

“You know I could cut it for ya,” Butch said, sat down on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table. A couple of comics were left there, one of them a coaster for an old mug.

“Butch, I wouldn’t trust you anywhere _near_ me holding scissors.”

“But you trust me with guns?” he said, nose scrunching up.

_That was a good point._

She gave him a grumpy look from across the room and turned to the fridge, which stunk of… something. She grabbed the cereal sitting on top of it, took out the bag, and wandered over to the couch beside Butch’s.

“You’d rather let your hair look like shit than let me cut it?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Butch, honestly.”

“Honestly what? C’mon, let me do it.”

“You didn’t even want to be a hairdresser!”

 _“Barber!”_ he corrected sternly. “There’s a difference!

They sat in silence – as they usually did after their quarrels – until Butch stood up and climbed the stairs. Ronnie thought he was being sensitive and had stormed off until he came back with a small black bag. She had no idea what it was until he unzipped it and she got the dull shimmer of silver scissors and plastic black combs.

“I said no!” she argued, glaring at him.

“Maybe I’m doing my own, you ever think of that, Nosebleed?” he said, giving her that childish look.

“Then you’d do it in front of the mirror, you asshole.”

_That was a good point._

The little bag came flying at her, the scissors still in his hand. She put her arms up in defence and dodged, then threw it back twice as hard.

“I’m not going to scalp ya!” he said. “Just give me a chance and stop being a bitch.”

She gave him a good and long death stare.

“Fine. But if you fuck up, I’m taking those scissors and I’m cutting every damn hair off your head.”

Knowing how much that pompadour look meant to him, she was ready for him to give up on the idea.

“Deal,” he said, and smiled.

* * *

Ronnie wouldn’t admit how her heart ran a little fast, sitting on the dining chair with the cape around her neck and down her body. The broom was on standby against the wall, ready to sweep up her hair once they were done.

“The whole barbershop experience,” he’d joked when he put the cape on. Ronnie thought about her dad. She would bet that never in a million years would James expect them to be sitting down together like friends, Butch getting ready to trim her hair.

“You cut my ear or something, I’m cutting other things of yours off,” she said.

Butch rolled his eyes and ran a comb through her hair, getting the knots out the best he could.

“I’m not even gonna be near your ear.”

She looked anxiously around the room and rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Just… don’t screw up, please,” She said finally, and shut her mouth.  She felt the first snip and watched a tuft of blonde hair float down to the floor. “That wasn’t too much, was it?”

“It’s fine,” he assured her, his eyes on her hair, never wavering. Upstairs the jukebox played the Ink Spots, which was nothing but an odd sound echoing from the vault. At least, it felt like it. It was almost ghostly or haunting.

He came around to her front, running each side of her hair down between two fingers and bringing them together to check their length. When he concentrated like this he puckered his lips slightly. She couldn’t help but smile, then snicker, at how stupid he looked.

“Whatcha laughin’ at?” he asked, giving a short little snip to her left side.

“You concentrate and do this,” she said, then puckered up her lips over dramatically like she was going to badly kiss someone. Butch stood back a little embarrassed and a little surprised at the state of her lips.

“Do not,” he argued.

“You do,” she said and smiled, completely content at leaving it at that instead of doing the usual spiralling into a really trivial dispute. Doing his best to control his face, he moved on to her fringe.

“Still going with the side swept deal?” he asked, poking it across her forehead.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t like it?”

He shrugged and the corner of his lip tugged upward.

“Nah, looks alright,” he said. “On a face like yours.”

She shoved him back hard with her foot on his thigh and he chuckled before returning to her hair with those focused blue eyes.

The tip of her fringe came off with one snip, floating down onto the cape and skimming down onto her lap.

“I think you’re about done,” he said, and for the first time he made eye contact. It was almost too intense, too close, for Ronnie to handle. It might have been had he not backed away and cleared his throat, brushing the blades of his scissors off with the sweep of a hand.

“You’re done, Ronnie-girl,” he said before circling around her and giving her hair a few more strokes over with a comb.

He let it go, letting it fall around the length of her jawline or just above it, and took the cape from around her neck, shaking it off of her hair and then giving her a mirror. She angled her head around, prodding at her fairly straight locks of freshly cut hair.

“Looks alright, Butch,” she admitted.

“Told you, girlie, the Butch-man is one hell of a barber.”

“And how many real people have you cut the hair of?” she smirked back at him as he folded up the cape. A pang of sadness ran through him. His mother was the first.

She corrected her hair into the tucked position behind her ears, briefly watching him sweep up the floor. He was really committed to this, and he really did enjoy it.

“In another life you’d be able to do this for a living.”

“One day, maybe,” he said, watching the floor. “Maybe I'll take it up in Rivet City and make some caps.”

By the look on his face she could tell that was an idea that had rolled through his head before. She wrapped her hands around the corners of the chair, lifting it and giving Butch one brief look in the eyes before returning it to the table in the kitchen.

“Thanks, Butch.”


	3. Sex Ed

Butch was blankly staring at a raider bleeding puddles of red into the grout of the tiling. They were in some kind of library. He didn’t really care at all for where they were as much as why they were there at all – caps. Ronnie was behind him, which he knew from the sound of her footsteps.

“I found a book for you,” she said in her most casual tone. With a toothpick between his lips he turned to her and leant to see over her shoulder.

“Wassat?”

“Sex ed,” she said, “your favourite class.”

She remembered all the times he put his hands up during Mr. Brotch’s classes with questions that began with _“Yo, Teach!”_ followed by a stupid question and laughter from the rest of the Tunnel Snakes. She remembered that so clearly in her mind, and god did it seem like an eternity ago. Mr. Brotch was always so patient, because really, he did find the kid’s questions to be entertaining.

“You can learn about wet dreams and shit,” she smirked, pressing it to his chest so he had to grab it.

“Hey, hey, hey, boy’s only!” he joked, tossing it back to its shelf. Ronnie screwed up her face and looked at him as if he was – and he was – an idiot.

“Girls have wet dreams, too, Butch,” she said, an eyebrow cocked in his direction. He screwed his face back up at her.

“You’re fuckin’ with me, Nosebleed, no they don’t.”

“They _do_ ,” she corrected. “Reminder that I’m a girl.”

“Barely,” he shrugged. “I’m not an idiot, Pipsqueak.”

She sighed in frustration. She didn’t exactly want to use her having one every now and then to be her evidence. They stepped over the dead raiders on their way forward. Ronnie’s rifle tapped against her upper butt as they walked.

“I’m telling you, girls can have wet dreams.”

He looked to her with a raised eyebrow and that stupid toothpick rolling around between his teeth and his tongue. It was distracting to say the least.

“You being serious with me?”

“Yes, Butch, I’m being serious. Girls think and dream about sex just as much as boys, just boys feel the need to talk about it.”

Butch smirked wide.

“You sayin’ you’ve creamed in the night?”

“Don’t say it like that!” she scolded, but really, it _was_ sort of funny. He could tell by the slight smirk on her face.

“Who over?” he prodded, “Mr. Brotch?”

“Gross!” she squirmed, “No!”

Right then and there, it didn’t feel like any of them were dead.

“Goodie-two-shoes like you must’a _loved_ the teach.”

“There were other men in the vault, Butch!”

He started laughing even louder.

“You’re right, you always did have that crush on Freddie!”

He was right, even if that was when they were both about nine or ten, but it had been one hell of a long time since she thought of anyone romantically. She looked at him with a solemn glare.

“We shouldn’t talk about them like that. Freddie could be dead for all we know.”

“Don’t be stupid, Freddie’s not dead. Nobody’s dead.”

 _‘Cept your mother and my dad,_ she thought, but dared not say. The look in his eyes told her enough, he was thinking of them, too. For now what happened in 101 would remain a mystery, maybe forever. They sure as hell wouldn’t be welcomed back with open arms. Ronnie briefly wondered if Amata missed their friendship as much as her. If she missed talking about school on the bunk beds and reading books together. She wondered if Amata thought them to be dead.

In a spare of the moment thing, she tried to pick the conversation back up into a happier more joking territory.

“So, you wet dreaming about, say… old lady Beatrice?”

Butch looked like he might throw up, so she burst into laughter.

“No way!” he exclaimed, “Could you imagine? If she found out she’d be writing me love poems. That’s gross, Nosebleed.”

It was probably the first time he’d ever heard her laugh like that, and it was infectious. Any passers-by might have thought they were friends.

“So, did you have any?” she grinned at him.

“What? Why you askin’ me for?”

“You asked me, why can’t I ask you?”

“Man, I’m not a loser, course I didn’t. Just… _heard_ about what it was.”

“You wouldn’t be a loser, dumbass, you can’t control it.”

“Pssh, nah,” he said, making a suspiciously low amount of eye contact.

“Alright then, sure, totally didn’t have any. Not one,” she smirked.

“Don’t see you denying it!” he blabbered.

“Hey, I’m not. Dreams were sweet back in the vault.”

Butch didn’t know how he felt about that idea, but it didn’t make him any closer to admitting he’d had his own, too. Or who they were about… weirdly.

“Glad it was in the vault,” he said almost nervously, “don’t want you doing that shit anywhere near me.”

“Even if I had, I wouldn’t give you the pleasure of knowing.”

And with that the conversation had ended as many of them did, in a little spat. That night as Ronnie slept across from him in her own blankets, he lay awake, the information of girls and wet dreams in his head. When she made a little sound in her sleep and her foot twitched, he wondered what she was dreaming about.


	4. 101

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where worse shit happens than what actually does happen in the game. Enjoy.

It was in Megaton that Ronnie heard the 101 distress signal. It was in front of the vault, after running there so fast she thought she might faint, that she realised something was wrong. It was inside the vault, _FUCK YOU OVERSEER_ painted on the walls, that Butch and Ronnie saw how long it had been since anyone was alive to issue a distress signal.

Ronnie near collapsed to her knees in the thick dirt and dust at the vault’s outer entrance, grabbing a rock and throwing it so angrily off the cliff that her elbow popped in protest of the movement. It achieved nothing, but what else could she do?

“This is _fucking bullshit!”_ she screamed. Butch was behind her, trying to work out how he felt about the situation. Whether he liked it or not, how Ronnie felt was completely obvious.

“Amata wouldn’t let this happen, would she!?” she yelled, turning back to Butch, her eyes puffy and swollen with tears, her cheeks beaming a blotchy red.

“What happened, though—” Butch began, only to be cut short by her shouting.

“Raiders, Butch! What the fuck else!?”

He gave her a slightly scared look. He’d never seen her this angry before, and had only seen her cry once - when James died. He didn’t know what to do then, and he didn’t know what to do now.

“Maybe some of ‘em escaped, Ron—”

“Nobody leaves that much blood behind and _escapes,_ ” she said somewhere in a sob, “and even if they did, how long would they last out here in this _fucking wasteland!”_

She dropped on her ass in a poof of dirt, crossing her legs, hugging herself tight, and leaning over in a whimper. She was trying her hardest not to cry but… _Jesus,_ she thought, _Amata…_

Butch sat down beside her in silence, going to run his fingers through his hair but deciding half way through lifting his hand that the gesture was too casual. His heart was hurting, but he wasn’t sure why. That vault was a prison, wasn’t it? What kind of remorse should he have for it, if at all?

“This isn’t fair, Butch…” she said, her voice all but a whisper.

“It ain’t, I know,” he agreed, “but… we can’t… just _sit_ here, right?”

His attempt at a pep talk didn’t register, she didn’t move from hiding her face behind her hunched shoulders.

“We were too late, weren’t we?” she asked after a long, solemn pause. Her face was even redder now, her eyes bloodshot. “We could have stopped it… or something. Maybe it was the overseer going crazy, a-and the vault got opened somehow. Raiders got in, or…”

Butch looked back over his shoulder at the grimy old door hiding the vault behind it.

“You were right, then.”

She looked at him, puzzled. When did he ever admit she was right?

“What?”

“About Freddie,” he said, and their eye contact was suddenly too much. She’d never seen pain like that in his face. She didn’t even get the chance when his mother died. “You know how you said they could be dead? They are, aren’t they? Paul, Freddie, Wally...” he paused, looking now to his feet. His own eyes were beginning to sting. “…I was alright with leavin’ if I knew they’d be alright, you know?”

Ronnie sniffled and rubbed at her eye with the side of her hand.

“I don’t think anything’s alright anymore, Butch.”

The sun bore down on their backs as they sat there in silence, the vault sitting empty behind them. Soon it would be infested with radroaches and god knows what else, and everything that 101 ever was and ever would have been would die with them. It was over. It would take one hell of a miracle for anyone from that place to have survived, and another for Ronnie and Butch to find them - dead or alive.

Ronnie stood up after what seemed like forever.

“What are you doin’?” Butch asked, looking up at her from the ground. Without looking back at him she wandered off, knowing he’d follow.

“I’m going home.”


	5. The Barfight

The Muddy Rudder was a hole, but hell, Ronnie didn’t care when she was kicking Butch’s ass at pool and getting off her face drunk. After a while moping in Megaton, she decided they were taking the trek down to Rivet City for a change.

Downstairs at the bar, some up-beat tune she didn’t know the name of and didn’t care to find out was playing. For once, this place didn’t seem so depressing. Something about it was unusually upbeat. Either that or the buzz of alcohol was distracting her into thinking it was.

“You’re _mine_ , Pipsqueak,” Butch said, lining up his shot. Ronnie stood leaning on her pool cue and watching intently. Butch was surprisingly good at billiards, but then again, so was she. Still, Butch remained in the lead. He was also on a bit of a buzz. He hadn’t drunk as much as she had, but she could see in his eyes that it was getting to him at least a little.

One eye shut and peering down the cue, he struck at the ball. Was that what you'd call it? Ronnie wasn't too familiar on the rules, but regardless, he missed, and it was her turn.

Ronnie grinned at him, waking her way back to the table and taking aim. The look of  _just wait for my comeback._

“Butchy-boy, you’re fucked.”

“Are not,” he argued. “You’re cheatin’ anyway.”

She looked up from her cue.

“How can I be cheating? You’ve watched me this entire time.”

“I dunno how, Nosebleed, but you’re doing it.”

“Right-o then,” she smiled, “you know the 8-ball is an instant win?”

She wasn’t quite sure if that was true but who was he to know?

“Bullshit it is,” he said, nose crinkling.

“If I get it into that hole,” she pointed to the corner, “I win.”

With the same cockiness he’d had all night – and all of his life – he nodded.

“Fine, but if you miss, you lose.”

“That’s not how it works,” she argued. He shrugged.

“Chicken, Nosebleed?”

She glared at him and leant down to aim, her eyes narrowing on the ball.

“You sure you can do it?” he asked, chuckling like he was 100% sure she’d miss. Much to her dismay and a quiet little _"shit,"_ , the 8-ball bounced off the corner of the table and rolled back into the middle. 

“I  _wiiin,_ ” Butch declared smugly, dropping his cue on the table.

“Good job,” she said, “but I’ll kick your ass next time.”

He was so smug, and that annoyed her  _so much._

Behind them, a bigger sized man with a goatee and a bottle of whiskey at his table laughed. Butch looked over his shoulder to where the man stood leaning coolly against the wall. He must’ve been a merc. Arms as big as that didn’t hide around in Rivet City. This guy was a wanderer.

“Whatcha laughin’ at?” Butch asked boldly, an eyebrow raised.

“Tunnel Snakes, huh? That a gang, Pompadour?”

This is when Ronnie began to take notice, and also when Butch screwed up his face, insulted.

“Yeah, what’s it to ya?”

The stranger’s face hardened and his smile faded.

“Don’t get insulted, pretty boy. Just a question.”

He stood up straight, no longer leaning on the wall, and skulled the last of his whiskey in a show of intimidation. Butch swallowed the small amount of fear bubbling up in his throat, keeping eye contact with the guy.

“Butch, leave him alone,” Ronnie said. She knew if a fight broke out, Butch wouldn’t stand a chance. He was a vault boy, not a battle-hardened wastelander.

Butch looked back to Ronnie for just a moment before turning back to the merc.

“Ronnie, I think this guy wants a piece of me,” he said, and looked the guy up and down. The merc laughed, slamming his glass down on his table and crossing his arms over his chest. He was big, hairy, and heavy built.

“You reckon, kid? You reckon you can go me?”

“Who says I can’t?”

The two stared at each other, and the height difference would have been funny if not for Ronnie’s fear that Butch was going to get beaten into a pulp. A few years ago she would have happily watched it happen, but Butch was important now. Important to her survival at the very least. Having someone to watch her six was something she didn’t want to give up.

“Look, he’s an asshole, just ignore him. Let this go,” Ronnie said, putting herself slightly between the two of them, gesturing that they leave.

“Nah, nah!” Butch loudly interrupted. Ronnie could have rolled her eyes. He wouldn’t just _take_ her help, would he? “Nobody messes with the Tunnel Snakes.”

_Please don’t say it, please don’t say it—_

“Tunnel Snakes rule!”

The merc burst into laughter.

“You get a head start then, asshole. You should have taken your girlfriend’s advice.”

Butch’s eyes widened and he nearly gasped.

“She ain’t my girlfriend, you punk-ass bitch!”

Ronnie dodged his poorly executed swing and watched in half-shock as the merc caught Butch’s arm before he landed the punch, swung him around with an arm wedged between his leather-sleeved arm and shoulder, and brought Butch down to the ground in a scream of pain. The way Butch’s arm bent and the way he screamed, there was no doubt his shoulder had been brutally dislocated. Butch was then rolled over, the merc straddling him in a way he couldn’t escape from, and punched down onto the pretty boy’s face.

The man laughed, briefly looking down at his bloodied work, his knuckles smeared with Tunnel Snake blood. The laughter abruptly stopped just as he was about to take another swing, when a pool cue smacked at full speed across his stubbled cheek.

The merc fell to his side with a great, thick red line across his face. Ronnie had hit him so hard the pool cue had broken, snapping on the guy’s face. She tossed it back onto the table and leant down to Butch, who was so stunned and in pain that all he could do was stare at the ceiling while his nose bled, dripping down his lip.

“Come on you stupid piece of shit,” Ronnie said in a frustrated sigh, grabbing onto the wrist of his good arm and pulling him up. He moaned in pain, his eyes squeezing shut. When he got onto his feet he almost fell back down, but she caught him, balancing him until he got his bearings. “You ready to go?”

“Mmm…” he grunted, nodding. He held onto his arm tightly, sure it was broken. Ronnie turned to the merc, his tooth on the floor a few feet from his open, bleeding mouth. A security officer approached in full defence position, a baton in their hand ready to strike as Ronnie put Butch’s good arm over her shoulders. She had to get his light-headed mess back to a bed and put his shoulder back into place.

“Freeze!” the officer shouted. Ronnie glared at her.

“He started it,” she said, pointing to the knocked out merc, “and I finished it. I’ll pay for the cue.”

Confidently she strode past the officer, silently hoping nobody witnessed enough to know Butch actually started it. They’d go back to Weatherly Hotel, he’d rest, and hopefully they’d get the hell out before the merc came back for revenge.

* * *

“Sit down,” she ordered, dropping Butch on his ass on the ground. The blood from his nose steadily ran down over his lips and down his chin from both nostrils, and his arm, _god,_ his arm needed fixing.

“You’re lucky I was trained as a doctor,” she told him, pulling her sleeve up over her hand and wiping his mouth and chin with it. The irony of using her sleeve after saying she was trained as a doctor was not lost on her.

“He fuckin’…” Butch mumbled with his lips on the side of her hand.

“Don’t defend yourself, I was there,” she told him in an almost angry mother kind of way. “I’m going to put your shoulder back into place, alright?”

“Wha…?” he muttered, eyes coming open slightly. He was so dazed. “That’ll…”

“Hurt, yes. But you deserve it, and if I leave it, it’ll just hurt more. Now let me take your jacket off.”

His brows furrowed.

“You’re just getting me naked, Nosebleed.”

She raised her eyebrows at him and knelt down to his seated height.

“You’re calling me Nosebleed? Right now?” she said, “ _As your nose is bleeding?_ ”

His smile was faint, but at least he found the humour in it. She found herself smiling, too, but forced it away.

She unzipped the front of his vault suit further down, contemplating how she'd deal with the white undershirt underneath. Butch whined.

“Can’t you do this with my clothes on?”

“I have to see your shoulder or it’s not going to work,” she said, taking his jacket off from over him and putting it down. The vault suit would be the hardest part.

“You’re going to have to take the top half of the suit off, Butch,” she said, “I can’t roll the sleeve up.”

With their joined effort they finally got the top half of the suit off. Through gritted teeth he cried out in pain, but it came off.

Much to Ronnie's dismay, the white shirt underneath was long sleeved.

"We have to do it again," she said.

“Ugghhhh,” he groaned, “I can’t… lift my arm out. C'mon, I can't do that again.”

He was breaking out into a sweat.

“I’ll cut it then,” she said, taking her knife from her belt.

“You can’t do that, this is my best shirt.”

“It’s a white fucking shirt, just get another one.”

She put her knife to the collar of his shirt and sawed through the initial thread. It snapped, and the rest was a breeze.

As her knife slid through his shirt, she found her heart begin to pound in her throat. She’d never seen him shirtless before. She barely ever saw him without his Tunnel Snakes jacket on. She was genuinely surprised so see a few chest hairs in the centre of his chest. If not for the strange intimacy of the act, she might have laughed.

“You could do it under the shirt,” he said groggily as if he might pass out from the pain. The shirt cut open fully, and she forced her eyes back up to his swelling face. His eye would be black soon enough. It was one hell of a punch.

“I can’t, Butch. I promise.”

“Just some… fuckin’ way of getting me shirtless, I think,” he grinned. It was the second time he’d told the joke, but this time it hit her. She nearly blushed.

She pushed his shirt off from his shoulder without a word and revealed the bone pressing outwards on his skin.

“Damn,” she huffed. Butch looked anxious.

“Please don’t hurt,” he said.

“You hurt yourself,” she said, giving him a short glare. “Now, I’ll just rub it back into place, okay?”

“Rub it?”

“Yes.”

She put her hand to his stuck out shoulder and rubbed into it. He hissed in pain.

“You sure this is how you do it? You’re not just making me suffer?” he complained.

“I’m _sure,_ Butch. Stop being a wimp,” she said. “You’d deserve it anyway. With this and your probably-concussion, we’re going to have to stay here for a while. We sure as hell can’t make it back to Megaton with you in this state, and we don’t have the caps to be here every night. I don’t know what we’re going to do because of you.”

He looked away guiltily, biting into his lip to deal with the pain. She was mad, but admittedly she was probably making up for being scared she didn’t actually  _know_ how to correct a dislocated shoulder. What if she did it wrong?

“You ain’t my ma,” he breathed.

He felt his shoulder pop back into its socket, and his whole face screwed up.

“Jesus Christ,” he sighed, “that fuckin’ prick… I hope he’s still lying face down on the floor.”

“He’ll be sore,” Ronnie said, still feeling the smack of the cue on his face reverberate through her hands. “You rest. I’m going to work something out with Ms. Weatherly so you can heal. You’re lucky you have me, Butch, or you’d be out on your ass without a sling.”

“I need a sling?” he moaned, lying down with his jacket, vault suit and shirt open on his chest. He covered himself up and wiped at his nose.

“That and some stimpaks. You better hope that mercenary is out of town by the time you’re ready to stand and walk around.”

She ran her hands through her hair and turned to the door, leaving without another word. Butch laid there, staring guiltily at the ceiling as he had in the Muddy Rudder. He thought, very vaguely, that maybe he _was_ lucky to have her.


	6. "For Warmth"

Their room in Rivet City’s finest hotel, the Weatherly, was like sleeping in a place made _just_ to keep you awake. The whirring of life around them and the clunking of metal made it nearly impossible.

Ronnie laid on her side, arm bent and rested under her head. The pillow had already been claimed by Butch’s meathead, and he only gave the OK to sharing the bed if he got the pillow. Keeping her bra and underpants on, she nestled in next to Butch just far enough that they didn’t touch. She curled up in the foetal position while Butch lie on his back, breathing steadily.

They didn’t speak, but they knew they were both awake. Butch knew when Ronnie was going to sleep because she twitched ever so slightly. Ronnie knew when Butch was asleep because she could tell the difference in his waking and sleeping breaths. It wasn’t a talent she was keen to share, but it existed.

At one o’clock in the morning, a particularly loud clunk above them shot Ronnie awake, which in turn had her kick Butch’s leg. He groaned.

 _“Ouch,”_ he whined, looking over to the back of her head. Her hair was tied up even if it was barely long enough to do so.

“You’re lucky I didn’t kick you in the arm,” she said groggily, and although he didn’t see it, he was sure her eyes fluttered back closed.

He rolled onto his side to face her, just like he had before when she forced him to share her blanket. Guilt struck him. The only reasons they ever had to share was because he fucked up. The first time it was leaving the bedrolls out to get stolen, and the second time it was getting his shoulder dislocated because he provoked a merc a little too much. But why was he guilty? Why, for the first time, did the Butch-man acknowledge his guilt? He watched her side rise and fall with each breath and wondered if it was because things had changed.

Half asleep and not knowing he was slightly closer, she rolled back, and for a moment they touched. She was either too out of it to care, or she was okay with it. Either way, Butch didn’t know what to do, or if he cared she was this close either. He outstretched his arm, and then she moved, rolling to face him and resting her head on his bicep. Her eyes were shut, and he wondered in amazement if she’d fallen asleep. She would never do this.

Her eyes came open and they looked at one another, the sides of their faces barely illuminated by a lantern in the corner. She could see the darkness of his eyes and his slightly parted lips.

She didn’t expect her heart to flip.

“Shut up,” she said, arrogantly staying where she was rather than denying herself this pleasure.

“You know you talk in your sleep?” he said, not knowing what else to say. She could feel his breath on her skin. They’d never been this close.

“You know you have girly eyelashes?” she retorted. She was grateful for the dark, otherwise he’d see her bright red cheeks and start grinning like an idiot.

“Told ya this was all to get my shirt off,” he said, “I reckon you’re just making a move on me, Nosebleed.”

Her eyes opened again and she stared at him. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t, she wasn’t even sure herself.

“You’re right, I telepathically told you to get your ass beaten so we could be in this exact situation.”

He smirked, and shit, her heart flipped again.

“You’re pretty good at mind control, girlie.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. How did they end up talking about this? How did they end up _here?_

“Really, because I don’t know what you’re thinking about,” she said, and then after a long and heavy pause, “What _are_ you thinking about, Butch?”

 _Thinking about kissing you,_ he thought, and then panicked so much he practically slapped the thought out of his brain.

“Y-you know those, uh, vault sweetrolls? You think they got ‘em out here in the wild?”

She sighed.

“Go to sleep, Butch.”

* * *

An hour later she was asleep, but Butch couldn’t do it. He lied awake with his eyes shut, noticing how Ronnie was shivering. He opened his eyes and moved his head slightly to see her back, uncovered by the only single sized blanket they shared. Whether she did it on purpose or not, maybe to let him have it all, he wouldn’t stand for her being cold. With his sore arm he reached out and tucked her back in, leaving her completely covered. The cold was creeping in on _his_ back, but he could deal with that.

The movement hurt, and he winced, not wanting to move his arm anymore, even if it was over her side. He rested it slightly over her body, just to test, until he could rest his whole arm’s weight on her. He hooked his arm around her and pulled her a little closer until her arms, tucked up between them, squished at her chest and her forehead was almost touching his. If she woke up he’d use the excuse that he was just trying to get them both under the covers. Luckily she didn’t wake, only exhaled peacefully.

She crinkled her nose as if something was itching it and rubbed it with the side of her finger, then settled back down.

 _Shit,_ Butch thought, catching himself smile. He scolded himself and almost took his arm away from around her, but… it felt so good to just have her like this. They fit perfectly, warm and safe, and he wished as he dozed off, that they could do this every night. But of course, this was only for warmth. There was nothing between them. She was a Pipsqueak anyway, little fuckin’ _nerd_. Right? Right.


	7. 2am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the almost year long gap. Whoops.

Ronnie was pissed off. Butch could see it in the way she fought. She was a naturally angry person and her resting face always made her look grumpy, but this time she was really furious. She had to pay Ms. Weatherly extra for her not being able to pay on time for their room in the hotel, promising to bring back the caps when they could, _and_ extra. Butch was surprised Ronnie got away with that kind of deal, but the way that girl intimidated people, it became less surprising the more he thought about it.

Luckily, the stims he took over the past days had brought his arm back to good as new.

By the end of the battle, a glowing one lay on the ground, its head turned to mush by the ass end of Ronnie’s rifle smack-bang in its radioactive skull. The damn thing and its friends got too close to them without them noticing. How? She was always so vigilant.

“You know you don’t _have to_ bring Weatherly the caps,” Butch suggested. She was too distracted catching her breath to notice how he _knew_ what was upsetting her.

“No, we can’t, otherwise we’ll never be let back into Rivet City.”

Butch’s nose crinkled. She was right. Ronnie sighed in frustration and wiped the sweat off her brow, leaning down to check one of the ferals.

“This is such _crap!”_ she growled, “The ferals never have caps on ‘em and we’ve got no jobs this side of the wasteland. The longer I wait, the more caps we owe.”

“Let’s just run away together,” Butch grunted sarcastically.

“Yeah, because I want to spend the rest of my life with _you_.”

He fiddled with the toothpick between his teeth and tongue. It was the end of the day and all he wanted to do was go home to Megaton to that stupid house they owned.

“Ain’t we doing that anyway?”

Angrily, she kicked into the side of the feral, its body flopping over, something leaking out of its open mouth.

“This is bullshit, Butch. You know it is. What are we doing out here? What’s the point?”

“’Ey, don’t get all deep and shit on me, girl,” He said. “We got plenty to live for out here, don’t we?”

She shook her head, brows furrowed and nostrils flared.

“All we have is each other.”

She looked to him, their eyes meeting.

“Ain’t that enough?”

Her expression softened. They stared at each other a while, bodies at their feet, which happened more often than not. Then her brow furrowed again.

“Shut up, Butch.”

* * *

They had to go to Megaton to get any work. Fuckin’ god damn Megaton. She hated that it had become the centre of their world. By the time they got back and had asked around for jobs, it was dark. Too late to go back out into the wasteland. Admittedly, all she wanted to do was go home. As they walked through the door, Ronnie first, she wondered if they ever really would need to go to Rivet City again. She shook her head. Of course they would, they had to go there all the time. If she didn’t pay off those caps they’d be in too much shit to get out of again without winning some kind of lottery.

“Look, I’m sorry, ya know?” Butch said as they wearily wandered across the living room.

“That’s a first.”

“No, I’m serious,” he said, and the lack of a smirk on his face proved it. “I fucked up. I know I did. I shouldn’t’a fought with that prick at the Rudder. But… sounds stupid, but we got each other, right? We’ll find the caps, bring ‘em back, and it’ll be like nothin’ ever happened. Just a story to tell.”

Ronnie smiled slightly, her eyes contradicting it with the sheer amount of misery in them.

“To who, Butch? We don’t have anyone else but each other.”

He shrugged.

“Always did want to start a gang.”

“You don’t _make friends_ in the Wasteland. You make allies, and even those don’t last long.”

“Well, we’re friends, ain’t we, Nosebleed? I mean, you’re a bitch sometimes but we got no choice.”

It sounded forced. She let herself smile, this time her eyes lighting up. She felt some kind of relief as their debt faded in her mind.

“Friends? Could you imagine your ten-year-old self hearing that?”

“My ten-year-old self didn’t know we’d be out here one day,” he chuckled, “and I wished for it every day, too. I just wanted to see the outside world, ya know?”

“Didn’t think it’d be together,” Ronnie said, shaking her head. Ronnie always sort of pictured while they were in the Vault that if they ever got out into the ‘beautiful world’ that it would be her and Amata doing it together, best friends, living in a hidden paradise. She knew about war and she knew about radiation, but it was so distant and such a dream that the idea of paradise waiting for them out there didn’t seem _too_ ridiculous. Now, it was the most farfetched thing possible.

He sat down on the couch, a small cloud of dust exploding out from the cushion. Ronnie sat down next to him, yawning, staring at the broken television in front of them that was there just for show. It was funny to think about what that old thing used to do before the war, and briefly wondered if it would ever do it again.

“I wanted to leave the vault and create a gang. Be the most badass motherfuckers in the outside world.”

“We kind of are, aren’t we?” Ronnie joked, laughing tiredly to herself. He chuckled.

“Yeah, s’pose we are,” he said, then paused. “How many other people out here can say they grew up with the people they’re allied with? That they came out of a vault together? That makes us friends, not allies. Or at least I think so.”

He stretched back, arms out, grunted a little, and rested one arm on the back of the couch while the other hand rested on his lap. They were so tired that neither of them cared how close they were. Ronnie felt his sleeve on her hair for a second, which was about as much contact as she would willingly have while awake, but stayed seated. It was oddly comfortable to be with her only friend. Funny now, since he’d said it for the first time. Friends. To be fair, though, he did call her a bitch in his next breath.

“You think Miss Weatherly will take that for an answer?” she asked, and looked to Butch. His eyes were half lidded and the way he leant back almost gave him a double chin, but it was weirdly cute. “We can just come up to her and say, _‘Hey, we’re the badasses of the wasteland!’_ and then she’ll be all, _‘right, sorry, here’s all my caps for you to take instead!’_ ”

Butch laughed, looking down to Ronnie, half a head shorter than him, and _fuck._

 _Fuck, shit, shit, fuuuck._ She was gorgeous. And _no, shit, no_ , his smile was so handsome.

The air was suddenly too thick to breathe. The way she’d laughed, the way _they’d_ laughed, they’d gotten closer. Physically, somehow, closer to one another on the old couch.

It would have been so easy. So fucking easy to just put a hand on his stupid cheek and kiss his stupid lips. But instead, their eyes meeting too long and too hot, she stood up, brushed off her lap, and went to get something to eat.

* * *

It was the two in the morning, Ronnie feeling slightly ill, partially from the food the night before, when Butch came wandering downstairs in a white t-shirt and loose, dark grey sweatpants. He seemed angry for some reason. Counting caps on the kitchen counter because she couldn’t sleep, Ronnie looked over her shoulder at him.

There was something calm about the house in Megaton. It was never brightly lit, always dim. Never loud, always quiet and creaking. You could have heard a bug scurry the floors, and maybe Butch telling it to ‘piss off.’ It was truly the only thing in the Wasteland they owned.

He yawned as he walked out, an oddly vulnerable thing for him to do. He always seemed he was putting on an act, so just being normal was a thing to witness.

“You find a children’s puzzle you couldn’t work out?” she asked casually.

“Nah, but… you were going to kiss me, weren’t ya?”

She felt her heart sink and her face suddenly ablaze.

“What?”

“You know when,” He started laughing. He didn’t know if it was amusement or a thousand pounds of nervousness hitting him like a bag of bricks.

“Stop flattering yourself like you’re hot shit. I looked at your face, I didn’t pucker up and shut my eyes,” she said, and tried to go back to her counting. She’d _really_ lost count, so she was just shuffling caps around.

“Yeah but you _do_ know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout? That look you gave me?”

“If you’re trying to embarrass me, it’s not working,” she lied, turning fully around to him. “I wasn’t going to kiss you. And you gave me the look, too!”

“No I didn’t!”

“Oh, please, this is your way of pressuring me. You’re the one that wanted to kiss _me,_ I reckon.”

“Pssh! Don’t give me that shit, Pipsqueak,” he said, “If I wanted to kiss you, I would have.”

“Like you could have me,” she said, trying to smirk as if she was completely confident in the words spouting from her mouth. “If you tried to kiss me I’d punch you in the damn mouth.”

That was a lie too. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

“I could have you if I wanted you, sweetheart,” he rolled his eyes. “You think for a second you could resist the Butch-man then you got it all wrong, baby.”

“Bite me,” she said, rolling her eyes right back at him.

“See, you’re already giving me signals.”

She glared at him in response. She half expected him to wink.

“You know, I think you like me, Nosebleed. I think you’ve liked me all along, ever since 101.”

“Your self-flattery is getting out of hand, Butch. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“Not if it’s true,” he chuckled. “I know you had a crush on Freddie, but I think you were just trying to make me _jealooous,_ ” he chimed. She was getting angry now.

“And why would I like you, Butch?”

“My wit, my charm, my—”

“Big head?”

“Hey, I got other big things, too.”

“Gross, like I want to see that!”

Butch laughed.

“You can’t resist me, girl, you can’t—”

She stormed up to him, nearly grabbing him by the collar but stopping a moment short. Butch thought very briefly in the moment of fear – and arousal – that it was like being approached by a hurricane.

“I can resist you all I want DeLoria, because I _don’t_ like you! You’re a stupid, pig-headed, cocky _idiot_ who I don’t need, and you have _girly eyelashes!_ ”

He shoved her back nowhere near as hard as he could have, his expression had turned serious. It was no secret they’d given each other black eyes and cut lips before back in 101, but it had been a long time since then. Butch never saw it as ‘hitting a girl’ because Ronnie wasn’t _a girl_ , she was Ronnie, and she was far from defenceless. No one fought back harder than she did. That, and they’d been doing it all their lives.

“And you’ve got freckles!” he shouted. It wasn’t an insult, more like an observation.

“Well you’re a pompadour twat!” she shouted, shoving him back twice as hard.

“And you’re a blondie bitch!” he retorted, pointing at her in the face, his eyes wide and wild.

“If anyone’s a bitch it’s you!”

“Prove it!”

She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him to her hard and fast, kissing him roughly with the crushing of their lips. Their eyes instinctively shut, their shoulders tensed up around their necks, and then as fast as it had happened, it stopped. The kiss broke and Butch’s head tilted cautiously towards her, until their eyes fluttered open and reality struck. He backed up, wiping his lips off with the sleeve of his jacket.

“See, fuckin’ loser! Told you!” he said, looking away with darting eyes, “You totally want me.”

Ronnie ran her fingers through the hair on the top of her head and cleared her throat. Her lips tingled and she wanted to run and hide, but nothing would look more pathetic than avoiding this. She would face this head on, even if it killed her.

“Butch,” she said, standing awkwardly in front of him. He forced his eyes to hers.

“What, Nosebleed?”

Neither of them moved, but their eyes locked again. A strand of blonde hair fell loose from behind her ear, and something in Butch wanted to correct it. After a long moment of staring at him, taking in deep, borderline painful breaths, she spoke.

“Kiss me.”

He laughed sarcastically, but his eyes didn’t change. His eyes were saying ‘ _really?_ ’ while his smirk tried to laugh it off.

“See?”

“Butch.”

His nostrils flared when he inhaled, one hand finding its way to her neck, his thumb caressing her jaw. Her eye contact did not falter until the moment before their lips touched. She was overwhelmed by him.

A moan escaped his lips, but he hardly had the space in his mind to scold himself for the luxury. Her hands ran up his neck. God his skin was soft. He allowed himself an arm around her waist, but couldn’t take his left hand from the soft strands of her hair. It felt too good to just touch her there.

Ronnie’s lips opened to breathe a shaky breath and Butch couldn’t help it. He loosened, tilting his head to her, their breath mingling. She sighed in a stutter, taking a moment longer but finally releasing the tension in her shoulders. Butch’s breath was heavy as he parted his lips, their tongues meeting gently. It sent fireworks through their chests. He felt her fingertips lightly touch the hair on the back of his neck, and God, it gave him chills. He clung to her, pulling her so close there wasn’t a gap between their hips at all. He wanted to grab her _everywhere,_ to _feel_ her like a man crazed.

He was so soft, she thought again, as if her thoughts were really working at all. She couldn’t feel her legs, only the strange feeling building in her stomach and the rising pulse of her heart. It drummed in her chest like it might burst, and with each breath it swelled. She wanted him too, god she wanted him, and it was the first moment in her life her mind had ever accepted it. She _wanted_ him.

She found herself leaning back against the counter, a couple coffee cups falling to the ground and shattering, but the sound was only background noise against the addictive sound of Butch’s breathlessness. She slipped upwards and sat herself on the counter, a leg on either side of his hips. He leant forward, craving her shamelessly now.

She rolled her hips against him, not by any choice of her own as it seemed, and he only responded by getting closer. He’d never seemed taller, nor had his shoulders ever seemed this broad or his lips this appealing.

The kiss slowed to a gentle halt, but neither of them moved away. Eyes closed, Butch rested his forehead to hers. Short of breath, maybe because her heart had swollen into her lungs, she simply felt him there. Their noses briefly touched, and it took everything in her not to kiss him again. _Just once more._

He backed away with eyes mostly closed, clearing his throat and not looking her in the eye. He turned, wiping his brow, and walked quickly towards the stairs.

“I’m going to, uh, bed,” he tried to say, not looking back.

Ronnie sat on the counter, listening to his footsteps clanking up the stairs and across to his room before the door shut and there was nothing left to hear. She put her wrist to her tingling lips, trying to rid of the feeling, and looked to the stairs again. He was gone. She pulled her legs up, feet on the counter, and tried to return to counting caps.

* * *

Butch shut the door behind him, swung his ass to his bed, and missed it by half a metre, falling tailbone-first onto the floor. He grunted and clung onto his ass, awkwardly getting back up and sitting on the bed. Fuck, he couldn’t think straight. He rested his elbows on his thighs and intertwined his hands, elbowing the bulge at his groin in some effort to make it go away.

“No, no, fuck off,” he told it in an angry whisper, pushing himself onto his back in a frustrated kick. He tried to lay on his side, then his back, and then his side again, but he was restless. He almost got up just to pace around his tiny room, but she’d hear his footsteps wouldn’t she? And what was she doing? Was she going back to bed, too? Was she laughing at what a pathetic idiot he was? His head rushed in circles. In a final effort he tried to lay on his stomach, but the uncomfortable pressure on his erection just made it harder to think about anything else. She was so soft, she felt so delicate…

He grunted to himself and jammed his erection into a more comfortable position, and in half a second wondered if he could ever live with himself if he quickly _dealt_ with it. No. He wouldn’t. He stuffed his arms under his body like a strait jacket and closed his eyes. He was going to sleep, and in the morning when the feeling wore off and his heart rate was somewhere normal, he wouldn’t mention it again.

* * *

Ronnie didn’t get through all the caps. Her mind kept wandering and eventually all the times she lost count and had to restart had gotten the better of her. With tired eyes she wandered back to her bedroom and curled up in bed. She hated how he’d turned her on. _Right on._ She rubbed her thighs together to try and ease the tension, and the insatiable need for friction, but it was no use. All she could do was lie still and wait for the feeling to go away. Just try and think of anything else, anything but Butch.


	8. Wanderers

When Ronnie woke up, Butch was gone. His door was open, his bed was empty, and he wasn’t anywhere. Any other morning it wouldn’t have bothered her. If this happened normally, she’d assume he was just out to get a bite to eat or maybe go for a walk. But the paranoia set in immediately. What if after their kiss he’d fled? What if he’d just hauled ass away from her, never to be seen again?

She walked through Megaton, looking around like the first time she entered the old town, lost, confused, and terrified. Then she saw Butch walking down the path with one Nuka Cola hanging from his hand, the other tipped up for him to guzzle. When he brought it back down, swallowing, he saw her straight away.

“You out lookin’ for me, Nosebleed?” he asked, smirking, but he was just as scared as she was.

“What are you doing?”

“Felt like a cola,” he said. “Are we going back to Rivet City today?”

She stared at him silently for a moment. He’d made things clear by saying nothing at all. They weren’t going to mention the night before.

“We should get on our way.”

He nodded, passing her the other unopened Nuka Cola. She was sure it was his as well. He wiggled it in his hand, urging her to take it.

“I got one for you,” he said. She took it and twisted the cap open, pocketing it in her pants.

“When have you ever bought me anything out of the goodness of your heart?” she asked.

He smirked. “On your tenth birthday when my mom made me.”

She chuckled and turned to walk home.

“We should pick up our things and get going.”

* * *

Weapons in hand, they walked. Butch lingered just a little behind, keeping Ronnie’s back. For ages now neither of them had spoken, only listened to the radio playing on half volume from Butch’s pip-boy. _Bingo, bango, bongo, I’m so happy in the congo…_

He was zoning out completely, walking through the heat feeling more ghoul than human. He patted down the wet patches of sweat under his arm pits and shook his shirt, trying to cool himself down.

“Hot, Butch?” Ronnie asked. He looked up with a gloved hand on his armpit and felt like he’d been caught doing something bad.

“I’m always hot,” he said, winking. She smiled and looked forward again. “Are you?”

“I’m just as hot, if not _hotter_ than you, DeLoria.”

He laughed with a dumb, toothy grin on his face, and patted at the pockets of his jeans.

“Want a snack?”

“Nah”

“Ain’t you the doctor that keeps telling me to keep nutritional and shit?”

She stopped for a moment, waiting for him to catch up so they could walk side by side for once.

“That’s not the word for it and I’m not technically a doctor, but yes.”

“Who _is_ technically a doctor?” Butch said, biting into an old candy bar and licking the melted bits off his fingers.

“My dad was the closest you could get, I think,” she sighed.

“I actually miss your dad,” Butch admitted, “which is weird.”

“He hated you,” Ronnie smiled.

“So did you. Or… so _do_ you.”

“I don’t hate you, Butch,” Ronnie said, staring ahead with her tired, sunken in eyes.

“My mom didn’t hate you,” Butch said, spitting out a bit of dirt. “I think it really shocked the shit out of her that you saved her, though. It for sure shocked the shit outta me.”

“I hated _you,_ Butch, I didn’t hate your mom,” Ronnie said. “And didn’t she dislike me because I broke your nose once?”

“Nah, she probably thought I deserved it.”

Ronnie nodded. He did.

“I hated your dad when I was a kid, but I grew to respect him, you know?” he said.

Ronnie smiled despite the grief. “Dad broke your switchblade once.”

Butch’s eyes widened in realisation.

“Fuck, really? I thought it was Amata that did that!”

Ronnie laughed. “Nope.”

They walked in silence for a bit, until Butch finally saw the funny side of it.

“What an old bastard,” he laughed, “breakin’ a kid’s switchblade.”

“He might have thought you were going to hurt me with it,” Ronnie said. Butch shoved the last of the candy bar in his mouth.

“I wouldn’t have hurt you, Nosebleed,” he said, mouth full of food muffling his voice. “I mean, I’d punch you and shit but I wouldn’t stab you.”

“Thanks, Butch, that’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I aim to please.”

* * *

Ronnie opened the door of an old building, dust wafting out like death. The sun was getting ready to set, and she’d said it many times to not let the night sneak up on them before they were ready. Travelling in the dark wasn’t safe.

On the third floor of the building, in an old bedroom, Ronnie began setting up her bedroll on the floor. Leaning against the frame of the broken window, Butch crossed his arms and stared out at the orange sky. From here there was a perfect view of the setting sun.

“We never got to see this shit in the vault,” he said. Ronnie, preoccupied, stood up to see what he was going on about.

“What? The sunset?”

“Yeah. It’s beautiful.”

She kicked open her bedroll, and started checking her Pip-Boy to see where they were.

“We had books with pictures in them,” she joked.

“Would you rather see a real sunset out here, or still live in the vault and not know what they look like in person?”

“Is this a game of ‘Would You Rather?’” she asked, leaning on the other side of the window. The bright orange light lit up both of their faces.

“It can be if you want,” he shrugged. Ronnie sighed and thought about it.

“It depends. I’d come out here if everyone we loved was alive and safe, otherwise I’d stay in the vault. For them.”

Butch looked at her thoughtfully.

“Really?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“…I guess I would.”

“For Freddie, Susie, Paul, Amata… everyone,” Ronnie said. All those names sounded so distant and foreign, like they were from another lifetime. In some ways, they were.

“You had a thing for Freddie didn’t you?” Butch said, and the smirk he normally said that with was gone.

“As a kid, yeah, but I grew out of that,” Ronnie admitted. There was no use in keeping it secret now. “I thought you had a thing for Susie.”

Butch’s face screwed up.

“Not my type.”

“You can’t really afford to have types in the vault,” Ronnie smiled. “So what _is_ your type?”

Butch shrugged, looking away.

“Not Susie.”

“She had a crush on _you,_ ” Ronnie said. It wasn’t even a lie to stir him up. She’d heard on numerous occasions that Susie liked him.

“Did she?” Butch asked, unfazed. They were talking about them like everyone was still alive, out there somewhere, in the vault maybe, living life like normal. No, just killed like raiders. Like nothing. Ronnie wished she could have known. They could have saved 101.

“You say she’s not your type, but if you had known back then, I’m sure you would have gotten in her pants.”

Butch’s nose crinkled in disgust.

“I’m not that shallow.”

“You’re not? Not even just for a kiss? She would’ve done it.”

Butch looked her in the eyes.

“I didn’t like Susie!” he said.

“Amata?” Ronnie asked.

“No.”

Ronnie paused.

“Come on, let’s go to bed.”

* * *

They lie sleepily on their bedrolls, nothing but the dim green glow of Ronnie’s Pip-Boy between them.

“You awake, Pipsqueak?”

Ronnie’s eyes opened and she looked up at him.

“What’s the matter?”

He stared at her nervously, now regretting he’d spoken.

“Butch?”

“Who did you like in the vault?” he asked. “Surely you liked someone after Freddie.”

Ronnie adjusted herself to look at him clearer, propping herself up on one elbow.

“You tell me, and I’ll tell you.”

“That ain’t fair,” Butch grunted. “I asked first.”

“We’re not _kids_ , this shouldn’t even be a discussion we’re having.”

Butch sighed, rolling onto his back and staring at the ceiling.

“Fine, who was your first kiss?” Ronnie asked. “You didn’t have to _like_ them.”

Butch sucked on his teeth and stretched his arms.

“You know, I’m sorry I woke you. You’re right, this is dumb. Goodnight.”

Ronnie threw her pillow at him, which smacked him in the face as he least expected it.

“Watch it!” he growled, throwing it right back.

“Don’t question me and then avoid it when I question you back!” she argued. “Who was your first kiss?”

“None of your beeswax, dweeb, now go to sleep.”

There was a long silence.

“It was me, wasn’t it?” Ronnie asked, her voice so much softer now. He looked at her briefly before his eyes darted away.

“No,” he denied, but she could hear it. “Pfft, imagine, if I stooped that low.”

Ronnie lied back down, head on her pillow.

“You were mine, too.”

Another silence.

He looked at her slowly, amazement in his eyes.

“Really?”

They stared at one another.

“We should get some sleep.”


End file.
